36 Things: Sew a Pillow

OK, the other day I wrote a post about the 36 Things I Want To Do Before I Turn 37.

I have 14 months, but sometimes I can be a procrastinator. And the woman who's blog I got the idea from only has two months to finish and isn't even half way done. I don't want to be stressed out by this project. I want to have fun with it.

So I started with #20 Sew a pillow.

I should have qualified, sew a good pillow, but if you have never sewn a patchwork bolster pillow cover before, you have to start somewhere. I bought this bolster pillow years ago, cheap at a thrift store, and there it sat, in my closet, waiting for me to do something....anything.


In the spirit of the Stenciled and Stitched class I have been taking, I decided to make this a free form, patchwork pillow. Sewing without a pattern can be difficult sometimes; there is no piece of paper telling you how to proceed. You just have to go with it and if you screw up, be willing to accept the consequences or start over.


So I played, and played, and played.


I think the ends are a little too loose. I may go back and change them. But I looked online at other bolster covers and they were all loose on the ends too. I might prefer a flat circle on the ends with a button closure.


But I might just leave it for now. I like the colors and the fabric, especially the polka dot IKEA fabric I bought in Dubai. The IKEA in Kent sold fabric when it first opened 20 years ago, or however long ago that was, but stopped pretty quickly. I was very happy to find fabric at IKEA Dubai.

It took the better part of one day to do this, and I thought this was one of the easier ones to complete! Good thing I gave myself 14 months.